Category: By munchman

Munchman’s Latest TV Musings

Munchman’s TV Musings #4

  1. Marti Noxon, an incredibly overrated writer for the even more incredibly overrated series Buffy the Vampire Slayer is turning Dietland, a novel by Sarai Walker, into a series for AMC because the world definitely needs more “coming-of-age” “revenge fantasy” storylines that mock fashion, fat, and, yeppers, skinniness too. Yer Fantastic Flying Munchman knows what this book’s all about, munchacolytes because he’s actually read the damn thing. And near broke me Kindle in the agonizing process.
  2. OTOH, there is a God after all, and the fact that Jennifer Lopez is going to star in a live version of Bye Bye Birdie on NBC in the deliriously welcome year of 2017 (cuz it absolutely has to be better than 2016, yeah?). What’s that? You never heard of Bye Bye Birdie? Well, it was a ’60s Broadway (and beyond, just like the bath store) musical based on how stupid small towns, teenagers, their parents, and Elvis Presley the Thin at That Time all were. It ain’t much of a show, truth be told, but holy crappoly! it has fucking Jennifer fucking Lopez playing Rosie, who captured a thousand and one ’60s geeks hearts by being mature, sexy as all hell and having only one wonderful goal in life – “to be an English teacher’s wife.” Yeah, baby!
  3. Moving back to derivative dark-sidedness, Netflix is unleashing a series called 3% on us even as munchola types this. This vileness masquerading as social satire is a reboot of a 2011 web series that itself was remarkably similar to a certain film franchise starring Jennifer Lawrence as a combination of a blond Raquel Welch (or maybe Jennifer Lopez) and Errol Flynn’s Robin Hood. I absolutely guarantee that the show’s going to be a mess. Instead of being “in like Flynn” (a historical reference definitely worth checking out), 3% is more out like, oh, how about gout (a medical reference you can ask your grandfather about)?
  4. Then there’s the semi-annual Knight Rider reboot, brought to us this time around by Justin Lin and NBC/Universal Brand Development. The name of the production entity pretty much tells us how the creators visualize it – as another vehicle (get it?) for merchandising more crap to “a new generation of fans.” Oh well, it’s bound to be better than the Team Knight Rider sequel series, right? What? Ya never heard of that one? Proves my point!
  5. Have you heard the joke about fan fave Bryan Fuller “stepping down” as showrunner of the upcoming Star Trek Beyond? The funny thing about this situation is that CBS is merrily reassuring all and sundry that Fuller’s departure won’t diminish the new series in anyway while simultaneously announcing that his duties will be picked up by Alex Kurtzman, whose perspective, taste, and talent totally eviscerated the ST film franchise. Wham! Bam! “No deep thoughts or ideas, please, we’re too busy keeping things moving, moving, moving.” In the words of Mel Brooks, who would be a better showrunner than Kurtzman or just about anybody else, “Oy vay!”

That’s it for this week. I’ve got a terrible, tasteless, but shockingly popular web series to get back to work on, but I promise – I’ll seeya next time with more TV joy!

Munchman’s Latest TV Musings

Munchman’s TV Musings #3

  1. OMG, kids, Yer Friendly Neighborhood Munchman actually saw a TV show I lurve. A series that reflects the reality of my munched-up life and, methinks, the lives of other members of my reviled Millennial generation. I’m talking about the absolutely best series ever to appear on The CW (yeah, that isn’t saying much but still…), My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. I won’t say much about it other than it’s a genuinely witty musical comedy (?!) and every damn thing I saw while bingeing Season 1 was true to all the feelings that I and my various recent Significant Others – AKA crazy ex-girlfriends) have felt. Watch this one!
  2. Continuing on an unaccustomed positive note, el Munchero also has spent some time watching the first couple of episodes of YouTube’s new series, Chance, starring Dr. Gregory House – excuse moi, I mean Hugh Laurie – as a doctor who gets way too involved in the problems of one of his non-patients. (Watch the opening ep and you’ll know what I mean.) It’s slow but filled with pseudo-noir goodness. That steamy old Kathleen Turner film Body Heat with a psychiatric twist. It’s a story we’ve all seen before, but it’s done impeccably. Gotta love a world where every single damn character is insane and most of them don’t know it.
  3. Moving on to the more normal Muncharoni disdain, CBS has canceled the worst show created by major showrunners in years, BrainDead. God, what a disappointing piece of Big Eye Network foolery. With any luck this will be the last we see of the highly overrated team of Robert and Michelle King. Don’t start commenting on how I put the man’s name first, ‘kay? That’s how the outdated, untalented brains behind one of the worst successes in TV AKA The Good Wife bill themselves. Buy-bye, Michelle and Bobby, please let the swinging door whack ya in your asses on the way out.
  4. Have I communicated my feelings of dismay over Charlie Kaufman’s film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind being turned into a TV series? Well, I’m munching the news into teeny weeny pieces right now. The creative team in charge consists of all kinds of people who are in tight with production company Universal Cable Productions, and Charlie himself isn’t one of them. Yeppers, Charlie Kaufman, the brilliant wacko scriptor behind not only ESOTSM but also Adaptation (executive produced by our Beloved Leader LB’s brilliant son Jeb Brody), Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and Adaptations, among others, has absolutely no say about this series. For that matter, he has never had a say about any series because TV execs are terrified of the dood. As they should be cuz Charlie knows things, ya hear what Munchie’s muttering?
  5. Munchabello here was going to write another angry paragraph about how totally patronizing and contemptible the recent announcement by Netflix that it’s authorized a new series by Mexican filmmaker Manolo Caro was, but shit’s happening at the Bangkok studio where my amazingly cool and wonderful and in every way perfect (if you have my mentality, that of a brilliant 12 year old kid) web series The Fantastic Friends is being made, so tootles for now, y’all. (And don’t forget to watch FF so you can see where I’m coming from and totally discount anything I say about…well, anything, I suppose.)

That’s it for this week. I’ve got a terrible, tasteless, but amazingly popular web series to get back to work on, but I promise – I’ll seeya next time with more TV joy!

Munchman Bitches Again!

What we do for luv – and money!

Munchman’s TV Musings #2

  1. Okay, kiddies. Yer Friendly Neighborhood Chowdowner has tried twice this season to watch Supergirl. Based on its reviews, I should be slurping it down madly and begging for more. But that first Superman-Supergirl team-up? Holy steaming crap! The script was okay – if you like things that are okay – but the tone in general, the camera angles and movement, the sfx – shameful and insulting. And now you expect me to munch on Legends of Tomorrow featuring The Justice Society of America? What the flaming hell is wrong with you, CW parasites? What?!
  2. Meanwhile, MTV is developing a War of the Worlds series, and all munchderio here can say is…what happened to the good old days when D-boyz and girlz just up and stole the classics and pretended the originals didn’t exist? Cuz speaking of insulting, calling this new show by the same title as H.G. Wells’ classic definitely is heaping big brown spots all over the Wells literary estate – and because the copyright is long expired, nobody even has to pay for the “privilege.”
  3. Okay, my munchiness is feeling a tad calmer now. A post in Flavorwire about fictional writers who’ve appeared on TV had a strangely soothing affect on moi. For my money, the most accurately present writer on television right now is Jimmy Shive-Overly of You’re the Worst. The only glaring inaccuracy is that Jimmy drinks more than he drugs, which isn’t how things be going for m-m-my g-g-generation. And he gets laid a hell of a lot more. No, just kidding! Nobody could possibly be having more sex than yrs trly. Really! I am so a stud!
  4. OMG! I’ve been bingeing on Goliath! I’ve always been a sucker for Billy Bob Thornton, ever since he kicked Angelina out. (What? You heard it was the other way around? Nope. No way!) Bottom line: Billy Bob makes even David E. Kelly’s dated dialog and attitude come alive, creating a character who’s warm without being fuzzy, and who almost makes me wish I’d been born a redneck too.
  5. Speaking of old, fading star showrunners, Steven Bochko’s Murder in the First has been cancelled by TNT. Hey, they got three seasons out of it, so all was not lost. Should it have stayed? Did it overstay? Muncho can’t really say. I never could make myself watch it. Tried and tried, but there was all that drinking and drugging and sexing and writing to do, and y’know how time just slips, slips, slips into the future…

That’s it for this week. I’ve got a terrible, tasteless, but amazingly popular web series to get back to work on, but I promise – I’ll seeya next time with more TV joy!

Munchman Bitches Again!

What we do for luv – and money!
What we do for luv – and money!

Munchman’s TV Musings #1

More thoughts from Yer Friendly Neighborhood Munchman, a guy acknowledged the world over (or at least within the room in which this is being typed) as a penetrating and trenchant observer and occasional conspirator in today’s TV scene:

  1. Word around the interwebs is that Disney, Amazon, and Apple are all looking into buying Netflix, which tells you bud Muncholo here that those of us who lurve the fact that Neflix is all about entertainment and nothing but (yeppers, I mean me! me! me!) could be in deep schitt because becoming part of just another diversified portfolio means the end of excellence as we know it. Think about it, y’all.  Every time the “our shareholders don’t care about the product, all the want is immediate profit” boys have moved in, audiences have suffered. Why, I remember back when I was Euripedes’ go-fer….
  2. Didja know that Black Sails is coming back for a fourth season on Starz? Do yez know why? Me neither, kidz. And I remember when Starz boss Chris Albrecht was a programming genius! Of course, he was also bopping his girlfriend in public back in those halcyon HBO days, so maybe his lost touch means he’s a better human being now, hey?
  3. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is being developed for TV by Universal Cable Productions. Munchhausen was all thumbs-up on the Charlie Kaufman-Pierre Bismuth feature film, but this version’s going to one of the geniuses behind Human Target, Mad Dogs, and Forever, credits much more suited for a certain male member that rhymes with the aforementioned “genius” word but starts with a “P.”
  4. Speaking of Schitt, as in Deep Schitt, sorry Canadians, but no matter how hard I try I can’t find a single thing to laugh at in that very rapturously reviewed fraud. Like the old saying sez, “Schitty is as shitty does.” (Come on, there must be some old saying that says that…or at least something like it, yeah?)
  5. To end on a more positive note, the interwebs have been showing Amazon Prime’s first trailer for The Grand Tour and – wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles, shockarooney – looks like the old Top Gear gang of Clarkson, Hammond, and May are gonna pull it off. Damn show looks and sounds glorious. Hmm, maybe things won’t be so bad if Amazon buys Netflix after all. But don’t believe my munchin’ mouth. Have a look-see for yerself:

That’s it for this week. Seeya next time with more TV joy!

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munchman’s Take on the Fall 2016 Season so Far

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What we do for luv – and money!

by munchman

More thoughts, munchites, from a guy acknowledged the world over (or at least within the room in which this is being typed) as a truly penetrating and trenchant observer:

  1. Okay, yer munchy one made absolutely my best effort to binge his way through Woody Allen’s Crisis In Six Scenes. Thanks to the magic of fast-forwarding, I made it through the first ep (well, more or less), but after that – whoa? Skinny, boring, old neurotic dude’s ready to trade in Elaine May for Miley Cyrus? This show is Allen’s biggest piece of crap since his last big piece of crap, and believe me, that was a tough act to follow.
  2. Anybody out there watching Amazon’s I Love Dick? No? I knew TVWriter™ attracted a smart crowd. Yer Friendly Neighborhood munchman’s advice: Keep away. Keep far, far away. I mean, how many shows about neurotic, self-obsessed, unhappily married and all-around unfulfilled 40-something housewives does any world need? And even if there was room for one more, I Love Dick wouldn’t be the one. (Lurve the title though. It never fails to bring a nice, sneery, smirk to me face.)
  3. Amazon’s also ready to assault us with a new version of The Tick. The first live TV version was heavenly satire. This one actually seems to be taking itself seriously. Sorry, Amazon, you won’t be kicking Netflix’s ass with this kind of crud. (Do you know what “crud” really means? Trust me – it’s definitely a word worth looking up. Oh, wait, they’ve fucking changed it. Now it means “an incrustation of filth or refuse.” Back when I was in 6th grade it was a guaranteed giggler because Webster’s said it was “a crude synonym for smegma.” And smegma is what The Tick is, through and through.)
  4. Ooh, at last, a half hour – more or less – of pleasure. Just watched the season opener of Blunt Talk, which is Woody Allened (you know, created and run by) Jonathan Ames, a skinny, neurotic, not old or boring neurotic dude who also created, produced, wrote, etc. the late lamented Bored to Death. For my moolah, such as it is, Blunt Talk is currently one of TV’s least-watched but most brilliant comedies. Orgasmically blissful (take it from somebody who, well, knows.)

Ah, nuthin’ like spreadin’ the joy. Seeya next week with more TV joy!

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